Proximate
by beanrox
Summary: The Avatar, Blue Spirit, Painted Lady and Blind Bandit. And then there was Sokka.
1. The Avatar

**Done because I can. (Though I don't own Avatar.) And because nobody looks at this kind of stuff enough.**

Sokka is always a little surprised to remember that, once upon a time, he had been skeptic of Aang. Sometimes, he still is skeptic of the monk - shaved again now, bald as a newborn babe.

Still scrawny and a vegan, too. A little taller, the blue tattoos still in place, his ears still big. (But smaller, Katara is fond of teasing, than his own.)

And when Aang does something extraordinary - blows a tornado out of existence, calls up a breeze with a flick of wrist - and the other non-benders are amazed, Sokka has to re-realize that that isn't normal, however used to it he is.

Because that scrawny kid who loves to go penguin sliding almost as much as Sokka's little sister is the Avatar.

The newly instated Southern Water Tribe Chieftain shakes his head - half amused, half exasperated - as he realizes his best friend is a legend. One he'd grown up hearing stories about. One that people praise as a savior, cursed as a coward or heretic, and look to for hope. Hope of what is their own choosing, but Sokka knows the truth.

Aang is the Avatar and still a kid, for all of his power.

So Sokka contents himself with just hoping that he catches some fish that day.


	2. The Painted Lady

_**Chapter Two**_

**Done because I was bored, and forgot how much I liked this thing.**

By now, when the both of them are married and she's pregnant with her third kid - a boy! - Sokka knows his little sister can take care of herself.

He also knows that her water bending is not magic, though he still likes to refer to it as such, mostly to annoy her. She's still his _little _sister_, _after all.

But sometimes he forgets just how good a water bender she really is.

Like when the other men and women of the tribe are awed by the way she encases that rampaging lion-seal in a solid block of ice - but Sokka isn't. He's gotten used to it, ironically.

The Water Tribe hunter tugged at his wolf-tail absently, thinking of The Painted Lady. Oh, he knew about her, too - apparently, everyone in the group had had a few little secret personalities.

What had astounded him was that she picked a Fire Nation one; they had been so homesick back then, when the whole lot of them were just kids.

The stories he heard about her escapades - when Katara had donned that hat, the dress, the makeup, she'd also breathed new life into the legend. A few whispers of it even reached the South Pole, when travelers entertained children with tales of their homelands.

But Katara is still a worry-wart and his only sibling, for all of her water-controlling gifts.

So Sokka smiled, leaned back, and watched the water lap against the shore.


	3. The Blue Spirit

**Haven't updated in ages; so here you go! (I wrote this in all of half an hour, so...yeah.)**

Although his comrade-in-arms - and the closest one in their little 'gaang' to his own age - Sokka really didn't think of Zuko as the Fire Lord.

Oh, no - he'd never called Zuko Fire Lord. Nobody had, even back when he was chasing them around on those ridiculous rhino-horses.

Mostly because Zuko is still socially awkward, passionate and bone-headed, even though he's ruling a nation.

So when said bone headed male goes and bends lightening like it's nothing, or helps redirect the flow of lava away from a city in the far reaches of his nation, Sokka once again marvels that he had once thought that the man and his father embodied evil.

Naturally, he'd been shocked when he found out Zuko had moon-lighted as the Blue Spirit, though he wasn't sure why anymore - everyone but him had had a crazy hero gig going when they were younger, it seemed.

What had amused Sokka - and confounded him - was that the mask Zuko had picked was blue and white, the colors of the Cheiftan's own nation.

It was a little odd, having to correlate the heroic, dangerous and mysteriously vanishing Blue Spirit with the - at the time - nefarious, deluded and brash banished Prince.

And yet...Zuko, no matter his face at the time, is still every bit the man who he had helped overthrow a nation for, no matter his impatience.

And resting a little easier, Sokka sighed, closed his eyes, and let the sounds of the tiger-seals wash over him.


End file.
